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Flashback: Shoe thrown at Bush

“What is that, a bat? Was that a bat? Is that somebody throwing something at me?” Clinton said, according to reports and footage from the event. Speaking at the Mandalay Bay hotel, she continued, “Is that part of Cirque du Soleil?”

She added, referring to a subject of her speech, “My goodness, I didn’t know solid waste management was so controversial. Thank goodness she didn’t play softball like I did.”

Clinton was a keynote speaker at a scrap recycling conference where the incident occurred. A woman was arrested on suspicion of throwing the object, according to The Associated Press and local press accounts.

Mark Carpenter, a representative for the organization hosting the event — the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries — stressed that the woman “was not affiliated with our organization and was not credentialed for this event.”

“Our staff denied her access before she later rushed past security,” he continued in a statement. “An ISRI staffer then stopped her as she approached the stage. She was then handed over to law enforcement.”

The incident is reminiscent of a 2008 scene in which then-President George W. Bush ducked during a news conference in Baghdad when an Iraqi attendee threw two shoes at him.

A spokesman for Clinton didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Since the incident in Baghdad, many protesters have thrown shoes at politicians around the world.